Special Guest Northern Highlight - Angela Foster

 SPECIAL GUEST NORTHERN HIGHLIGHT

Angela Foster, Children and Young Person's Librarian, Stockton-on-Tees

There are many aspects to your role - can you tell us a bit about life as a Children and Young Person's Librarian

I am Children and Young Person’s Librarian for Stockton Borough Libraries. This means I am responsible for the development and co-ordination of all aspects of the library service with children and young people. This includes organising events, activities and promotions linked to The Universal Offer Calendar including Children’s Mental Health Week, The Summer Reading Challenge, National Poetry Day and across age ranges from birth to teens and young adults and families.

There is a lot of partnership work both within the library service, with branch librarians, the Health & Wellbeing Librarian and our Digital Team, working across the Council with Children Services, Family Hubs and our schools; and also across the North East region with ASCEL, Youth Libraries Group and Northern Children’s Book Festival. It is a busy role, but a privilege to be working on such an important area where you are nurturing, inspiring and supporting children, young people and families to read for pleasure and to provide them with materials and activities to support their education and wellbeing.

COVID-19 restrictions forced the library service to pivot and focus on digital services. We are expanding our eBook offer and online resources of magazines and newspapers, supporting staff to record storytimes and rhymetimes to keep us engaged with the local community and now we are developing live online events. It has been a constant learning curve and this time has definitely pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone but it has also brought back into clear focus the importance of a library service to the community.

You're an outgoing Carnegie Kate Greenaway Medal judge - has being in the north impacted on your role as a judge?

Being the CKG judge for the North East, 2019/2020 was such a big honour. To have the opportunity to play a small part of the history of the awards was an amazing experience. The fact that judges do come from all areas of the country gives each region representation. I wouldn’t necessarily say that being from the north had a great impact on my role as a judge apart from some logistical aspects. It is much easier to travel to London so travelling North to South by train rather than getting to Birmingham but that’s just dealing with national public transport network. Generally the hour travelling by train is great as gives plenty of time for extra reading!

Who for you are the great Northern artists and illustrators?

David Almond comes straight to mind. His descriptions and dialogue always capture the North, and Newcastle and Northumberland, in particular.

It was also wonderful that in my final year as CKG judge the Carnegie Medal winner was Anthony McGowan with Lark. Also having Chris Mould’s illustrated version of The Iron Man shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal was fantastic. 

What is the importance of children's regional book awards?

With co-ordinating Stockton Children’s Book of the Year (SCBY) I not only have to say hugely important but I also truly believe it! And the proof is shown by the fact that SCBY has now been running for 24 years! There are a range of national book awards for children, which is fantastic as it is so important to highlight and shout about the great writing and depth of talent there is in children’s books at a national level. 

Regional awards allow for children and young people to get involved and have their say on what books they are enjoying reading. In Stockton, SCBY is a big part of our work and the Celebration Day and Award Ceremony is a highlight of our Children and Young Person’s event calendar. The opportunity to bring five authors to the region for the day creates a huge buzz. When you are trying to inspire young people, giving them the chance to hear and talk to the authors themselves is the best way to go. Due to budgets, we don’t always have a lot of opportunities to bring authors to the region and book sales can be tricky in some of our schools, so having a regional award where the children have a huge input into it, gives them ownership of their reading in a big way across the county.

If you could be transported to anywhere in the North right now, where would it be?

With all the lockdowns I would settle for anywhere that isn’t my own four walls! I love being by the coast, my family holidays were always British seaside towns with ice-cream and Southport was and still is a favourite. I also think chips from the chippy taste extra special when sitting looking out over the sea, it must be the sea breeze and the additional sea salty taste. We are also really lucky to have Northumberland and the Lakes within reach with gorgeous landscapes.

Why is it so important that we continue to develop and support creative talent across the country?

It is really important that as a country we continue to develop and support creative talent. Creativity is so important in life as it allows us to view and solve problems more openly and with innovation as well as bringing out skills and qualities such as empathy and thinking about how as a society we want to live. We need opportunities for new talent to be creative and to come forward with new ways of thinking and looking at the world; to have a voice in the conversation.

You can follow Angela on Twitter and find out more about the Stockon Children's Book of the Year at www.scby.co.uk